McEvoy manages to sustain some suspense—and even inject some idealism—although we know where this election is heading.
Rife with hard-drinking, lusty cynicism and quirky characters named Cyclops Reilly or Monsignor Séan Pius (“Johnny Pie”) Burke, this is very much the Irish Catholic, New York City novel its title suggests.
Now in his 50s, successful political strategist Jude Wolfe Tone O’Rourke is tired, both of politics and of his life. Several things conspire to energize him, however, especially his hatred and contempt for Jackie Swift, “New York City’s most reactionary Republican congressman” and his meeting with Simone “Sam” McGuire, a gorgeous and savvy political operative. As O’Rourke makes an unexpected decision to become the Democratic candidate rather than to shill for others less qualified, things quickly get down and dirty. The candidates try to one-up each other in mud-slinging, not difficult when the coke-snorting Swift is having an affair with his chief of staff, and O’Rourke is accused of having sympathies with Irish terrorists. O’Rourke runs a wild campaign of brutal, sometimes obscene honesty—he’s especially effective on a Fox network “news” show more than a little reminiscent of The O’Reilly Factor—and finds his numbers climbing. The virgin of the title starts out as a joke or an embarrassment. As Swift and his paramour are getting it on while simultaneously watching The Song of Bernadette, he has a heart attack. His campaign manager tries to explain that he had a vision calling him to even more forcefully oppose Roe v. Wade, but McEvoy (Terrible Angel, 2002) forces us to take the supernatural dimension more seriously when O’Rourke, and occasionally McGuire, also have dreams and visions that are cryptic, yet loaded with meaning.
McEvoy manages to sustain some suspense—and even inject some idealism—although we know where this election is heading.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-60239-351-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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